


Shaved Hair and Study Sessions

by arwainian



Category: Persona 5
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Haircuts, Love Confessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-03 23:07:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10977297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arwainian/pseuds/arwainian
Summary: Makoto finds a small way to rebel before the Phantom Thieves are even a concept and it grows from there.(Or "Makoto Gets a Haircut and a Girlfriend")





	Shaved Hair and Study Sessions

**Author's Note:**

> This was just supposed be a short little thing about Makoto giving herself an undercut and then I ended up writing 3000 words...
> 
> Anyway, I couldn't find anything saying what Ann's living situation is so I just improvised. MakoAnn is a quality ship and deserves more content and I am happy to supply it.
> 
> Well, enjoy! Any kudos and comments are appreciated!

Makoto stands in the bathroom with the mirror from her room perched precariously behind her, a fist full of her hair tied up, and the electric razor she bought with the money she earned from a job she took over summer break. It’s her second year of high school and she wants to try something different. She takes a deep breath and turns on the razor.

The razor‘s buzzing fills the room. It’s much louder than she expected and she’s glad she chose to do this while Sae is out at work and won’t be coming home anytime soon.

“Well," she says, "there’s no time like the present,” and starts carefully shaving off the hair on the back of her head that she doesn’t have tied out of the way.

It takes a bit longer than Makoto would like, but she gets it finished long before her sister comes home anyway. She looks at the reflection of the mirror behind her to get a good look at her new haircut. It’s messy and a bit uneven but she runs her fingers through it and finds it’s actually very fuzzy. She smiles at her reflection and starts to laugh.

She actually did it! She actually just gave herself an undercut. She’s a bit dumbfounded with herself, in all honesty.

She laughs for a bit longer and then takes a few deep breaths to calm down. She needs to bring the mirror and razor back to her room and clean everything else up. Makoto lets down the rest of her hair and looks in the mirror one last time to make sure the shaved area can’t be seen. She smiles again and gets back to cleaning everything up.

She’s beaming up until Sae gets home with a tired look on her face from a long day of work. Makoto opens her mouth to tell her about what she did today but it occurs to her that her haircut probably looks ridiculous and she shouldn’t be bothering her sister with it anyway. She decides to just mention it another time when Sae is feeling less stressed.

* * *

Makoto sits at her desk and tries not to bite her hand hard enough to hurt it. It’s her third year of high school, and that boy in her class just won’t _shut up_ again. God, she’s _trying_ to learn and she can’t really do that when she’s shoving her hand into her mouth so she doesn’t scream.

The rest of the school day mercifully passes quickly but instead of sticking around to study in the library, Makoto takes the quickest possible commute home. Sae’s staying at work late today, which means Makoto can shave her head again and, man, does she need to.

She sets the mirrors up, pulls up her hair out of the way, and plugs in the razor. She’s better at it now, but she still takes her time. The vibration of the razor tickles a bit but she keeps her hand steady and methodically shaves the back of her head.

When she’s finished she turns off the razor and sets it down on the counter before reaching back to rub her hands all over the newly shaved fuzz and just breathing with her eyes closed for a little bit. She feels the stress melt away and she smiles.

It strikes her while she’s cleaning everything up that she still hasn’t shown Sae her undercut. Well, she can’t really show it to her now because then she’d feel like she has to explain that she’s been doing this for about half a year at this point and that would end awkwardly. Plus, what if Sae thinks it doesn’t look good? What would she do then?

When Sae comes home Makoto’s hair is down and the razor is still hidden in the back of her closet.

* * *

Makoto sits in the dusty attic of Leblanc with the rest of the Phantom Thieves. It’s still her third year of highschool but life has thrown a lot of new information, situations, and- friends? Yes, she would call them that- friends her way. For once, they were meeting up just to hang out and _maybe_ get some studying done (as if that would ever actually happen).

It’s actually kinda relaxing even though everyone (cough Ryuji cough) can be a bit loud at times and-

“Whoa! Makoto! The back of your head is shaved!” shouts Ann _way_ closer than she had been a moment ago and Makoto realizes that she had been pushing up the hair on the back of her head.

“Wait, what?” Ryuji says, pausing from the bickering between him and Morgana, “Miss Student Council President shaves her head? I gotta see this shit!”

“Oooooooooh! What’s it look like?!” Futuba’s attention locks onto Makoto instead of whatever she was doing on her phone.

Makoto scrambles for words while everyone looks expectantly at her. Every one of them looks intrigued and Makoto tries to reason with herself. Ryuji, Yusuke, and Futaba dye their hair so it’s not like doing something creative with her hair is gonna be weird to any of them. Does Ann dye her hair? Her hair looks naturally blonde and it doesn’t seem like she wears blue contacts but Makoto hasn’t gotten around to asking her about any of it. Wait, that’s not what she needs to focus on right now!

“Umm, it doesn’t actually look very good…” she mumbles, prompting protests from the entire group ranging from “Come on!” to “I bet it looks great!” to “Unconventional looks are often quite beautiful.”

Makoto looks at all of them, sighs, and gives into the peer pressure. She pulls off her headband and lifts her hair up as she twists to show the back of her head. She suddenly feels very silly. Oh _God_ , what does it even look like when it’s not reflected in two separate mirrors?

“Ooh! Nice!” says Futaba.

“I didn't think you had it in you. It looks great, man,” Ryuji comments.

“Makoto, you did this yourself?” Haru asks.

“Y-yeah, I did it my second year,” Makoto says, “It was pretty uneven the first time I tried.” She laughs a little hoping they don’t notice how embarrassed she is.

“You’ve gotten better,” says Akira.

“It looks so _soft,_ ” Ann muses and Makoto blushes just a little. She’s still _very_ close.

“Uh, it actually kinda is.” Okay maybe she’s blushing more than just a little bit, but Ann is much closer than she has to be and it’s just kinda embarrassing, okay?

“Hmm, I wonder if it’s softer than Morgana’s fur,” says Futaba.

“I don’t think we need to test that.” Makoto turns back around and let's her hair fall back into place.

“Yeah,” Morgana says smugly, “my fur is softer! There’s no question about it!”

“I seems like the perfect place to experiment with shapes and designs… Tell me, have you attempted to shave any patterns into it?” Yusuke asks.

“Uh, I think that would be too difficult to try on my own,” Makoto says. She rubs the fuzz at the back of her head again.

“Ooh! Hey, maybe you can come over to my place sometime and I can try and help!” Ann says excitedly. She smiles widely and Makoto’s heart melts just a little.

“That... actually sounds like a good idea.”

“Cool! Just tell me when you’re free after school and we can meet up, okay?”

“O-okay.” Oh _god_ Ann has a nice smile.

* * *

The next time they enter the Metaverse, Makto ties her hair up and looks at Ann first. Ann smiles at her.

“You look great, Makoto,” she says. The few of the others also throw in their own compliments, but Makoto is still looking at Ann.

The next time they meet up at Leblanc, Makoto puts up her hair again. She asks Ann if she’s free after school tomorrow to try and shave patterns in her hair and it might be one of the most nerve wracking things she’s ever done. Ann says, “sure!” and Makoto nearly dies of relief and excitement mixed up in a big ball of powerful emotion.

When she walks up to Ann after school the next day, she’s fidgeting the whole time, tapping her fingers together.

Makoto sees Ann smile when she spots her and her heart just about leaps out of her chest.

“Ready to go?” Ann asks.

“Yeah,” Makoto holds up her bag and lowers her voice without really thinking, “I brought my razor too…”

“Great! Let’s get going,” Ann says and they walk out of the school and to the trains together.

“So do you have, like, any ideas about the designs you want? Cause I don’t want to mess up your hair. ...Since, that style looks really good on you,” Ann says when they walk through the door to her apartment.

“Oh! I was thinking about just diagonal lines for now… And I don’t think you’ll mess it up at all,”

“Ahaha, let’s hope,” she says as she drops her school bag.

They make their way to the bathroom together and Makoto hopes her nerves don’t show while she ties her hair up. The buzzing of the razor bounces off the tiled walls and she looks straight ahead at the mirror. She feels the familiar tickle of the razor on the back of her head and relaxes a bit.

She sees the partial reflection of Ann’s faces in the mirror and Makoto’s mesmerized. Her hair is pulled back with the exception of one pale strand that she continuously pushes out of her face as she shaves. She's biting her lip just a little in concentration and keeps glancing down at her phone where she presumably has a picture of the pattern she was trying to make.

Makoto quickly looks back at her own reflection before Ann can notice her staring and sees the blush dusting her own cheeks. Oh. _Oh_.

She comes to a realization and suddenly a few things make _much_ more sense. And just like that her mind is overcome with a mixture of half-manic laughter and “ _oh, alright, this is a thing. This is a..._ thing. _And I- wow, okay, yeah. I like_ girls. _Well it's Ann I like but yeah that mean- wow yeah okay.”_

“And...done!” Ann says as she switches off the razor, “I hope you like it cause I’m not actually sure I can do it any better, ahaha… I’ll just take a picture so you can see, okay?”

“Okay,” Makoto says and she’s already grinning. God help her if she sounds infatuated when she thanks Ann for her help.

* * *

Makoto walks down the hall and searches for confidence from the presence of Johanna in the back of her consciousness. It’s a week later, and Makoto finally has some semblance of an idea about what she’s going to do about her crush.

“Uh...hey, Ann,” Makoto calls out as she walks towards her, “I remember you saying you were having trouble with your history work and I was wondering if you’d like to study together. Maybe I could help?” She hopes that doesn't sound condescending, but it was the best excuse she could come up with during the ride to school.

“I was just about to ask if you could help!” Ann smiles in the way that makes Makoto’s heart leap, “Come on! Let’s get a table in the library before anybody else does.” Ann grabs Makoto’s arm and starts walking with her to the school library before Makoto can even respond.

They find a table for themselves somehow and sit down to study together. Makoto wasn’t expecting that to actually work. She keeps glancing at Ann nervously. Maybe she should’ve asked Eiko for some tips on flirting. Wait, but Eiko still thinks she’s dating Akira. She’d probably want to know _who_ Makoto wants to flirt with if it’s not Akira, and Makoto’s barely figured out all her feelings about Ann in the first place. How is she actually supposed to talk about them out loud?

She’s nervously rubbing her shaved hair before she knows it. She should probably stop because she’s in a public place and somebody might notice, but it’s relaxing and she’s feeling anxious.

“Do you want me to touch it up again?” Ann whispers to her.

“I- uh what?” she responds oh-so eloquently.

“Your hair. You’re touching it a lot and if you’re feeling self conscious I could… I don’t know. Help you shave it again?” Ann says and an idea pops into Makoto’s head so quickly and with so much force she’s surprised a light-bulb doesn’t appear above her head.

“I would appreciate that. I think I can come over again sometime this week, if it’s alright with you.” Makoto says and hopes her idea will work.

“That’s great!” Ann whisper-shouts and beams, “I’ll text you later to work out what day. But we should probably keep studying right now, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” she says, mind returning to the task at hand, “We should,” and her heart does a happy little loop-de-loop.

* * *

Her plan goes off without a hitch. Well, occasionally Ann has a modeling gig when Makoto invites her to study together or the team has a trip to the Metaverse planned when she means to ask, but other than that everything goes perfectly. Most days they study after school together and at the end of the week Makoto asks Ann if she’ll help shave her hair again. The only actual problem with her plan is she doesn’t actually have any idea how she’ll even ask Ann out, if she will at all.

“I’ll figure it out eventually,” she mumbles into the dark of her bedroom before drifting into sleep. She means it, she just wants it to stay like this for a while: comfortable.

* * *

“Hey, Makoto?” Ann asks.

“Yes?” Makoto looks up from the homework in front of her, “Are you stuck on something?”

They’re at Ann’s apartment studying. It’s become usual now to study together when Ann is finished shaving Makoto’s hair.

“I don’t think your hair needs to be touched up this often. It’s been looking pretty good when you come over. I mean...it always looks good, but it’s still pretty neat. Do you, like, think it looks bad? Because I promise you look great.” Ann laughs nervously when she finishes speaking. Makoto would have found it adorable if she couldn’t swear she feels her heart stop beating. Why she starts speaking she doesn’t actually know because she definitely didn’t mean to.

“I...well, I kind of… um...I wanted to spend more time with you and that and studying were really the only things I could think of that would give me an excuse to just hang out with just you and it sort of got out of hand.” As soon as the first words are out of her mouth, it’s like the dam has broken and the rest follow. She has to bite her lip to keep herself from saying everything at once. Her face feels like it’s on fire.

“...Why didn’t you just say you wanted to hang out? Come on!” Ann’s voice sounds like she’s smiling, “There are some places we can eat nearby I’m sure we can find somewhere we can-”

“I mean not as a friend, Ann.” Why did she say that? Makoto covers her blushing face and tries to wake up. It doesn’t work, of course.

“Oh! Oh…okay-” Ann gently pulls Makoto’s hands away from her face, “-that works too.” Ann is smiling timidly when Makoto looks at her and can’t help but smile back, albeit nervously.

“I...take it you like me back,” she says slowly, careful while choosing her words.

“Yeah, I do,” Ann says as she pushes the papers aside.

“Um...how long? If it’s okay that I ask.”

“Um ahaha, since we went out for crepes together. I think? It mostly happened over time...and you?”

“I don’t know how long, I just realized the first time you shaved my head for me…” Ann giggles when she says that.

“Yeah, that was...kinda intimate,” she says and Makoto nods in agreement.

“So…” Makoto says. She reaches up to rub the back of her head.

“So,” says Ann, “do you want to go on a date? There are some places we can eat nearby.” Ann is blushing and Makoto is hyper-aware of how her own face reddens.

“I like that idea.” Makoto hesitates for a moment, then reaches out to hold Ann’s hand. She smiles when Ann intertwines their fingers.

“Great! Let’s go!”

* * *

Makoto sits on a tall stool she’s dragged into Ann’s bathroom and Ann stands behind her, carefully shaving a new pattern into her hair. It’s March and Makoto is so incredibly lucky. They’re getting a few more quiet moments in together before they have to head out to pick up Akira for the surprise road trip.

_“Just remember to actually show up,” said Ryuji when Ann had mentioned her plans to hang out with Makoto before heading out, “We’re counting on her to drive us! What are we supposed to do if you two get caught up being all lovey-dovey and ditch us?”_

_“You’re just jealous that I actually have a girlfriend, Ryuji,” countered Ann._

_“I resent that!”_

Makoto only hears about that exchange after the fact and it was probably the closest she’s come to spoiling the surprise because she just wanted to tell Akira about it so _bad._ She settles for laughing with Eiko about it.

Makoto watches Ann’s face in the mirror and smiles. Ann is biting her lip gently like she always does when she’s focused. It’s endearing and Makoto would turn around to kiss her right there if she didn’t know it would mess up the pattern Ann is trying to shave.

Ann finishes and smiles at her widely before turning of the razor and putting it away and Makoto lets down her hair.

“Ready to go, babe?” Ann says. The endearment always never fails to make Makoto blush.

“Of course,” she says, “I love you,” she adds for good measure.

“I love you too,” says Ann and it hits Makoto for maybe the fifth time that day that she is hopelessly in love.


End file.
